New HMRC guidance on the skills / chance distinction...

[grecian]

...is to be found here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/briefs/vat/brief0610.htm

[kingzilla]

I hope things can hurry up and get sorted now, stringing this out is harming the industry.

[Istenem]

thanks for the link Grecian. they are not going to get any crystal awards for that. i am almost certain that i've misunderstood it in some detail.

my best guess from that is that arrears will not be chased but going forward, SWP will be taxable as AWP.
but one phrase which seems too woolly is

'depending on stake and prize limits'

i imagine this is covered in legislation relating to existing AWP taxation (about which i know nothing). given that pub AWP can be played from 25p-£1 stake and can award a maximum prize of £70 per credit, SWP would seem to dovetail neatly with existing legislation. it could be argued by people who under-understand the distinction that AWP and SWP are subsets of the same thing, and, if a lazy person is in charge of decision-making, it could be a swingeing burden. but my further understanding is that brewcos foot the bill at present so it will largely be the decision of wetherspoon, chef&brewer etc. whether SWP is a viable crowd-puller.

this is probably all wrong, can anyone with a mind for legalese elucidate?

[grecian]

I think what they are saying is that some (but perhaps not all) of what we think of as SWP cabinets should properly be characterised for tax purposes as AWPs. Where this is the case, going forward duty should be paid on those machines as if they were out-and-out AWPs, although as you say HMRC say they won't chase back payments of duty (presumably because they admit their guidance might have misled).

As to the distinction, the key paragraph seems to be:

"Quiz games played on a machine can be games of chance if they involve both an element of chance and an element of skill, an element of chance that can be eliminated by superlative skill or are presented as involving an element of chance."

This does sound very wide to me, and is clearly going well beyond just saying that SWPs with e.g. a poker theme are "games of chance".

It's for the industry to make what case it can in its defence: speaking personally I find it difficult to think of any SWP which wouldn't fall inside one of HMRC's criteria for "game of chance" status. The presence of a compensator mechanism surely means that any given play on a game contains an element of chance, i.e. whether or not it's paying at that moment? And what they appear to be saying is even if someone like e.g. Suri can come along and nail FFQ every time, whether it's on hard or easy mode, that doesn't stop FFQ having an "element of chance".

This looks ominous to me, although as I say it is for the industry to fight this as best it can.

[Matt Vinyl]

I surmise from this (rightly or wrongly) that probably nothing will change in regards to SWP content - just whether or not pubs will be willing to fork out the extra 'tax' to have the machine sitting there in the first place...

[grecian]

I surmise from this (rightly or wrongly) that probably nothing will change in regards to SWP content - just whether or not pubs will be willing to fork out the extra 'tax' to have the machine sitting there in the first place...

It's certainly difficult to see how to get rid of compensator mechanisms without making every single play of a game so wretchedly difficult as to make the game totally unappealing for Joe Public.

[JG]

The other way this may be got around is by use of pots.

Every game is pitched at the same level and the prize is the pot. On 30% payout, an industry standard, the pot will rise by 15p a game (50p play) and on completion of the quiz based task, the pot is awarded.

Various mechanisms will have to be implemented such as only showing the pot when the player has committed to play and maybe addition of a reserve pot. 5p into reserve, 10p into main?

Pots would also have to have caps and a secret reset overflow pot maybe implemented for this purpose.

I don't even suppose the game can randomly seed the difficulty as that is chance in itself. Maybe even having to play to see the pot could be argued as chance. For a quiz pro, the low hanging fruit would now be clearly visible, but after failing to win 15p on the first go, would you risk another 50p for the chance to win 30p?

Even that Betfred quiz thing would be deemed to be chance. IS it possible to get them all Megatouchy tournamenty in play? No instant pay outs? Uuurgh some of you would hate that idea.

Going back to the pots, offer the chance of a pot gamble? Double or nothing on a 3 answer multiple choice Q which would be rock hard. That way your 15p pot could be doubled and doubled and doubled to the jackpot/capped at lesser prize to avoid rapage if you wished with part saves an option.

There you go GWHL, that is how you do it. Food for thought anyway.

[cp999]

I take it Adders and Ladders was a game of chance because you rolled a dice. I must have been VERY lucky.

[Northern Monkey]

I am sure it's been posted elsewhere but what will be the license fee per unit- presumably only the very busiest of units would ever cover the cost?

[Hangmanfan]

One conceivable way that SWPs can remain exempt from AMLD is by housing only quiz games such as Pub Quiz - where the prize amounts are always achieved at set points. It's been so long since I played Pub Quiz that I can't actually recall whether it's the same number of questions you have to answer each round, but that would also have to be standardised. Would the industry be willing to entertain this? Probably not I expect.

They should have never veered into 'highly-chanced game' territory, so it's their own fault. When I say 'highly-chanced game', I mean the way the games have changed from straight Q&A games (WWTBAM for example) to the likes of Family Guy, where you can seemingly spend ages eliminating blocks, getting nowhere, it feels. When is the prize coming, and how much will it be? (I am willing to accept that I may just be shit at Family Guy ). You get my gist though. Even with that game on the Itbox where you go round a castle of some sort, picking up 1-3 arrows and chasing a target of typically 800 points, you reach the prize round with no clue of how much you'll win. Then there's the game where you always answer 20 questions (Choose To Lose IIRC), with the prizes being scattered on 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 questions rightly answered. They're so much more 'chancy' than the good honest-ish games of Bullseye, Hangman (no bias, honestly ), and Itbox Soccer, for example.

Once was the time that prize structures in games were clear; we're now in an era where prizes fall arbitrarily out of piñatas, with no-one quite sure where the piñatas are (but not because they're blindfolded...). Some may feel I've exaggerated there, but there's definitely been a shift towards what I'll call 'prize-cuntedness' over the years.

I realise that the games I've mentioned as being too chancy weren't the ones that will have invited a review by HMRC, but I just thought it'd be food for thought anyway.

I'd settle for 'boring' old quizzering if it meant SWPs could remain AMLD-free, and therefore existent in the public houses I might find myself in. All I need are a few different colours and typefaces - and maybe the odd jingle - to retain my interest.

Does anyone know how much extra it would cost, per cabinet, if SWPs were liable for AMLD?

[QuizMaster]

I could live with 20-30 Pub Quizzes on the same box.

I'm sick of these chance based games where random letters appear on the board and you have to make words.

[Istenem]

not another thread which turns into a word soup thread? really QM, you should know better.
anyway the major element of chance in that is the permissive scrabble dictionary for short words. in terms of successful gameplay it is wholly skill and not learnable.

as for a box with 30 pub quiz clones; i'd find that utterly and irretrievably dull and so would the punters. the whitehall suit needs to look at the bigger picture of pub entertainment: if SWP is forced out because of over-zealous, myopic taxation, that is just another reason for people to drink (and smoke) at home with cheaper booze and they can play their SWP games online too.

God knows there are enough pubs closing already, and this is the nub: as part of our sociocultural identity, the pub is fundamental. why hasn't the daily mail picked up on this outrage?

[cool]

Background
Our intention is that only those quiz machines that are not defined as gaming machines will fall outside the scope of AMLD. However, we accept that advice in Amusement Machine Licence Duty Notice 454 (covering changes effective from 2006) may have misled businesses into believing that machines on which quiz games were played were always exempt from AMLD and that businesses would suffer detriment if we sought to recover the underpaid duty.

Guidance
Quiz games played on a machine can be games of chance if they involve both an element of chance and an element of skill, an element of chance that can be eliminated by superlative skill or are presented as involving an element of chance.

It is clear from the above that Customs & Revenue are run by a bunch of half wits.I contacted them years ago as did my friend Wolfie (also contacted the Gaming Board) and they did nothing.The minute they can smell money they reinterpret their rules layed out 4 years ago and say sorry if they misled people.They are an absolute joke.The News Of The World carried a report on this fiasco last week and I believe that a Conservative spokesman stated that they wont be introducing this unfair tax so I will actually be voting blue as I want to have a living left (1st time I vote since '79).It will be another way that the intelligent of the country get a kicking whilst the proles (pro's excepted) will continue to be able to spunk their wages into the fruities each week. :x

[asphalt]

I would have thought the obvious way forward, and perhaps something GW in particular have realised, is to network all cabinets and only have tournament-style games. (king.com is considered skill rather than gambling)

If you are playing directly against other people, answering exactly the same questions or using exactly the same letters, then surely that removes anything that could reasonably be considered chance.

Might be better for the serious player. Play your favourite game all day and fleece drunks from across the country without leaving your local.

I suppose another option might be to run SWP games on a digital AWP cabinet.

[coinercaner]

I would have thought the obvious way forward, and perhaps something GW in particular have realised, is to network all cabinets and only have tournament-style games. (king.com is considered skill rather than gambling)

If you are playing directly against other people, answering exactly the same questions or using exactly the same letters, then surely that removes anything that could reasonably be considered chance.

Might be better for the serious player. Play your favourite game all day and fleece drunks from across the country without leaving your local.

I suppose another option might be to run SWP games on a digital AWP cabinet.

Another option would be to just bring back Dr Fox's Chart Quiz and be done with it. Are any of the major parties offering that? Come on Gordon!